//------------------------------// // Fantastic, it's him again. // Story: Schadenfreude HATES MAGIC // by Daemon McRae //------------------------------// The new, bright-orange-and-red unicorn looked tensely at me. “Hello,” she said with a practiced, and overly polite, smile. “I’m Sunset Shimmer. Twilight and I have come to you to ask about a rather… unique problem.” Sunset Shimmer. I know that name. I know I know that name. Sunset… Shimmer... “Pleasure to meet you! I’m going to assume by the barely-contained excitement in your voice that my reputation precedes me! My name is Schadenfreude von Douchehorse. Royal Butler, Honorary Class 2 Archeomancer~” I added with an eye waggle at Twilight. I took great pleasure in reminding the Princess of Friendship that there was, in fact, someone who could outrank her. On accident. At least she’d stopped lighting me on fire when I did so. She was distinctly not amused, although she showed great restraint in leaving me unscathed. “Actually, Schaden. That’s why we’re here. As much as it physically, psychically, and emotionally scars me to say this, we need your he- your he… your hel- WOW this is hard.” Sunset rolled yer eyes. “Schaden, we need your help. Specifically, we need the supervision -(hurk) oh Celestia I think I just threw up in my mouth a little- of a… Class 2 Archeomancer.” Now, I’d had a few very brief, very shining moments like these. The moment I was first told I was going to be Blueblood’s butler. My first date with Derpy. A couple other personal moments in my life that, while brief, shone like the sun. Pure, perfect moments in which everything lines up exactly perfectly for me. “Oh, Twilight, what did you do?” “What?! What do you mean what did I do?!” she barked. “Twilight, you and I both know there’s only one place in all of Canterlot a Class 2 Archeomancer has access to that a Class 3 does not,” I explained smugly. “It’s literally the only reason they gave me the honorary title, because it’s the only place in Equestria with the necessary safegaurds to store the Shatterbox. And, having been the pony who solved the damn thing, I was given my Class 2 status specifically for the express purpose of keeping tabs on the shiny evil little bastard. Also with the added technicality that there wasn’t anything else in the Restricted Section that I could, or even wanted, to use.” Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Ok, what does that have to do with Twilight doing something wrong?” “Because, miss Sunset-” There it was. It kept on bugging me. Where the hell do I know that name from?! “-The only reason Twilight would need to use the Restricted Section so badly as to come to me for assistance is because something went wrong. Moreover, it went so wrong that she would rather deal with me, voluntarily, in the flesh, than have to explain to either Princess Luna or Celes...ti...a…” Then it clicked. Fell into place like dominoes. Oh my god. OH. MY GOD. I KNOW NOW. “*ahem* Celestia what exactly it is that went wrong. So one of two things has happened. Either A: some kind of horrible ‘Friendship Problem’ has reared its ugly head and you’re determined to handle it yourself, OR,” I added, with a knowing look at Sunset. One she responded to with a rather puzzled expression, “Something happened in that weird alternate bipedal dimension I keep hearing about.” Sunset’s expression went from confusion to alarm rather quickly, though she did her best to regain her composure. Too little, too late. I KNEW it. “Now, neither of these would entirely exclude the Diarchy as a viable recourse, as they’re both relatively reasonable ponies, and have plenty of experience with things getting out of hoof, unless you were somehow directly responsible for whatever it is you need one of the most secretive and dangerous collections of magical knowledge and history in all of Equestria to fix.” Twilight’s eyes twitched back and forth. “Weellll… yes and no. You were right about the… weird bipedal dimension thing, although I have no idea how you know about that-” “-Celestia-” “-of course she would. But it is not entirely my fault. Actually, screw that. It’s not my fault at all. Unfortunately-” she added, as I opened my mouth to ask many annoying questions, “-I’m closing in on three strikes, and would rather avoid the absolute bureaucratic nightmare that is the Equestrian National Unicorn Society if at all possible.” I nodded sagely. “That does make a great deal of sense. They are surprisingly eager to flex what little authority they have over the Royal family. They were almost disturbingly eager to revoke Blueblood’s membership. Although that might just be him.” Both Sunset and Twilight smiled a little. “No, that’s probably entirely my-” Sunset cut herself off. “-he probably did that to himself.” “Quite,” I said, raising an eyebrow at her. “So, to narrow things down, you need me, that is, the only non-royalty in Equestria with access to the Restricted Section-” yes, yesss, twitch little alicorn eyebrows, twitch “-to chaperon you and your… unicorn friend here to said Restricted Section. I would imagine you also do not want me to report this to either of the Princesses, the ENUS, or anyone that might pass along the information” “Yesss….” she said through gritted teeth. What a great day. “Which means…” “Schaden, don’t” Twilight grunted. “Which meeeaaannnnssss…” “Schadenfreude, I swear to the sun…” “Say it.” “NO.” “Say it. SAY IT. I love it when you say it,” I chided. “...I… owe… you… a fa- a fahahaha- a falalala- a frrrbrbrgrlrlrbghrl-” Twilight struggled. I. Could not. Be happier. “Once more for the ponies in the back,” I said encouragingly. “I OWE YOU A FAVOR!” Twilight roared, then quickly covered her mouth as a passing guard gave her an odd look. Sunset patted her shoulder consolingly. “It’s ok, Twilight. Admitting you have a problem is the first step.” “Actually….” I said. Then just looked at Twilight expectantly. She stared at me. I smiled back. She growled at me. I continued to smile. Finally, she sighed. “TWICE,” she added, with an almost gargantuan sense of defeat. It’s the little victories. --------------- “My word this is boring,” I grumble aloud, leaning into my hoof as I stare lazily into space. Seated in an admittedly cozy lounge chair in the corner, my eyes struggled to stay open as I watched the two mares pour over volume after volume, and no shortage of scrolls. “You know, you’re not exactly helping,” growled Sunset. “Hey! My help was getting you two here in the first place. Also, I offered to look with you, but you won’t even tell me what we’re looking for!” I argued, rather effectively. If I do say so myself. Which I did. Sunset gave Twilight a pleading glance. “You know this would go faster with another set of eyes, Twilight.” “Mmm-hmm,” the alicorn said noncommittally. “And he’s just gonna be a pain in our flanks until we either finish or give him something to do,” Shimmer continued. “Yeah-huh,” said the Princess, not looking up from her book. “You know what? Buck it. We’re looking for-” “Don’t TELL him!” Twilight barked, now giving the conversation her full attention. “Why in the Tartarus not?!” “What if… what if he learns how to use it?!” Sunset leveled the most deadpan stare I have ever seen in my life. Which, given my varied and well-traveled experience, was an extremely impressive feat. “What if he learns how to use it?” “Well, yeah!” “Twilight. It’s a counterspell,” Sunset groaned. “Shhh!” “A counterspell to a very, very specific gender changing spell,” the unicorn continued. “Shut up!” “HE’S A BLOODY EARTH PONY!” “He knows Enochian!” “HE- wait… what?!” I nodded sagely. “Indeed. I speak two living languages and four dead ones.” “H-how?” Sunset asked desperately. “My room is directly above Princess Luna’s,” I explained. “Who talks in her sleep. I’ve been learning Old Words involuntarily for years now. Which, I might add, doesn’t actually let me use magic, Twilight. That’s a common misconception born from a time when magic items were encoded with Words of Power, commonly written in dead tongues like R’lhyen, Enochian, Babbleonian, etc. Earth Pony scholars kept setting off the devices by reading the inscriptions because those artifacts used stored magic. That practice went out of style when tribalism cooled down, and unicorns started accepting that Earth ponies and pegasi could be scholars, too.” Twilight, I could tell, was visibly torn between being wrong and learning something. “Where did you even pick that up?” I shrugged. “I made the same mistake. Princess Luna was more than happy to sit me down for a history lesson and explain exactly why nopony was worried about me having access to the archives, because outside of keeping an eye on the box, and becoming the BEST at trivia night, there was literally nothing for me to gain from coming down here. Which was a distinct disappointment when I realized I would not, in fact, be able to give you a panic attack by casting a spell you didn’t know.” “I knew you would do something like that!” Twilight yelled. “Yes, yes, I’m an annoying prick. Now do you want me to help you or not?” “NOT.” “Twilight…” Sunset started. “...fine. Would you please he… hel… oh god it’s in my throat. Heeeeeellllp meeee….” she choked out. “You know, I didn’t even know I needed this until now,” I said, beaming. Sunset rolled her eyes. “Schaden…” “Yes, yes, off to work. Now what am I looking for?” I asked, hopping down from my chair and making my way to the nearest bookshelf. “Like I said earlier, we’re looking for a counterspell to a gender reassignment curse,” Sunset explained, while Twilight tried to brush the taste off her tongue with a hoof. “Wonderful, that narrows it down. I don’t suppose you know what’s casting this curse?” I groaned. The sheer number of gender change spells, hexes, curses, and enchantments available to pony kind was staggering. “Something called a Penance Band-” Sunset cut herself off as I turned at speed away from the bookshelf and found a nearby wastebin to empty my stomach into. “-which I’m guessing you’ve heard of?” --------------- A few minutes later, after some dry heaving and a more thorough explanation of things, I found myself absolutely indignant. “And somepony did this to a child?!” I screeched. “We’re not sure,” Sunset said calmly, in an effort to calm me down. “We don’t even know if someone did this on purpose. Magic on the other side doesn’t work the same way, and there’s apparently a freakin’ flea market’s worth of magical objects just literally lying around in the tall grass waiting for someone to pick them up.” “Oh that’s just delightful. Where the hell did all that Equestrian Magic come from, anyway?” Twilight rolled her eyes. “Apparently, some of the more… famopus figures in Equestria’s history weren’t exactly the best at cleaning up after themselves. Starswirl the Bearded-” “-Clover the Clever-” “-the Storm King-” “-Discord-” “Right,” I interjected. “So this… human world was, until recently, just a dumping ground for bad magic?” Sunset flinched a little. “Kind of? I mean, a few more notorious monsters from Equestrian history were also just dumped into that dimension. Celestia knows what else got left behind. But, in what is proving to be a series of ‘unfortunatelys’, that’s a problem for later. Right now we’re just trying to help this kid get back to his regular life. I mean, I kind of owe it to him, I feel partially responsible.” Twilight gave her a consoling look. “Oh, Sunset, we don’t even know if the Band was a recent thing. It could have been dumped there ages ago to keep it out of harms way. You shouldn’t feel responsible just because you brought new magic to Equestria.” I gave them both a curious look. “That’s where this sense of misplaced guilt comes from? I thought it was just a by-product of Celestia being your mom.” “EK-FUCKING-SCUSE ME?!” Twilight roared. “GODDAMMIT SCHADENFREUDE!”